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Title: US 'hate groups' bolstered by Obama's election
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URL Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14018798
Published: Jul 6, 2011
Author: Jonny Dymond
Post Date: 2011-07-06 12:16:41 by wudidiz
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Views: 251
Comments: 16
Campaigners claim right-wing groups such as Aryan Nations are on the rise Did the election of Barack Obama as US president boost the growth of right-wing and so-called "hate groups"? A curious thing happens when you walk down the street in Spokane, Washington, first thing in the morning. Complete strangers look you in the eye, and say, with a little smile: "Good morning." It is that kind of a town; if not close-knit, then, compared to some of the other towns and cities in America, human in scale and friendly to strangers. Which makes the attempted bombing here of a civil rights march in January all the more difficult to comprehend. The man alleged to have left a rucksack filled with explosives and shrapnel - covered in rat poison so as to stop blood clotting - is Kevin Harpham, an Army veteran with an interest in neo-Nazi groups. "We live in a different world now - hate seems to be a widespread phenomenon ” The difficult truth for Spokane, for Washington State, for neighbouring Idaho and for all of the US, is that hate groups - anti-black, anti-Jew, neo-Nazi - are on the rise again. And nearly everyone, including members of those groups, agrees that the election of Barack Obama has been a catalyst for the increase in support. "I wouldn't say it surprises me," says Spokane's mayor Mary Verner, "though it is alarming to me". "We are seeing a resurgence in hate groups because we are seeing democratic activity and empowered citizens who are not Anglo-Saxon Protestants." There was the same sort of reaction from the local sheriff, Ozzie Knezovich, when he heard that a bomb had been left beside the route of the Martin Luther King Jr Day march. "Surprised? No," he says. "We live in a different world now - hate seems to be a widespread phenomenon right now" 'Explosion' of groups And there are ordinary citizens - and their children - who are at the receiving end of hate group activity in Washington and Idaho. Barack Obama has faced repeated questions about his legitimacy as president Rachel Dolezal, who teaches art and African-American studies, has been repeatedly harassed since word got out about what she taught. Her homes - she has moved several times - have been broken into. Nooses have been left for her, and a swastika was left on the door of her workplace. And she has acted to protect her son. "I actually bought him a pair of earphones for the bus," she says, "because he hears the word 'nigger' every day. "It seems things were kind of hush and sanitised and cleaned up, or something, and then Barack Obama just brought things to the surface that were already existent within people." Hate groups and other groups on the far right - so-called Patriot groups which vow to resist the encroachments of the Federal government, and anti-immigrant nativist groups - are tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC). "In the fall (autumn) of 2008," says the director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, Mark Potok, "we started to see an explosion in hate groups, but more generally in right-wing groups of general types." Rise in requests If Mark Potok wanted confirmation of his research, he could find it just across the border from Spokane, in the city of Coeur d'Alene, northern Idaho. Sitting on his porch as the day fades into night is Jerald O'Brien, flanked by the flags of the Aryan Nations group and the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian. Aryan Nations supporter Jerald O'Brien describes Jews as "the children of Satan" Aryan Nations is a wildly anti-Jewish white separatist group. The faded plastic children's toys on the lawn seem more than a little incongruous. Mr O'Brien insists he does not condone or encourage any acts of violence. He calls Jews "the children of Satan". He accuses Barack Obama of being Jewish - he is not - and of not being a US citizen - he is. But he has cause to thank the president. "The day after Barack Obama's election," he says, "my phone would not stop ringing. It was up to four or five a day asking for education and information." Some will dismiss men such as Jerald O'Brien, and groups such as Aryan Nations, as "wackos" and "nut-jobs". But Mark Potok is concerned. "I think we are in a very similar period as we were in the run-up to the Oklahoma City bombing," he says, "as far as a bombing or an attack like that, whether that will come, we don't know. "We are very close in numbers to the numbers we had at the very peak of the militia movement." The trial of Kevin Harpham, accused of attempting to the bomb the Martin Luther King Jr Day march in Spokane, begins in August.
US 'hate groups' bolstered by Obama's election
Ozzie Knezovich Spokane sheriff 
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#4. To: wudidiz (#0)
KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — With its jagged peaks, glistening lakes and lush valleys, the Inland Northwest — stretching from eastern Washington to Montana's Glacier National Park — is a stunningly beautiful and remote part of the country. It also is a cradle for sometimes-violent anti-government activity — a reputation most recently rekindled by the search for David Burgert. The former Kalispell militia leader is accused of opening fire on sheriff's deputies on a remote logging road in Lolo National Forest. After a lull following the demise of the Idaho-based neo-Nazi Aryan Nations in 2000, anti-government and white supremacist groups and individuals may be reviving in the Inland Northwest. It's a mostly white, mostly rural area with few job opportunities and a history of extreme activists. Experts say the number of radical right groups is growing across the country because of the poor state of the economy, rising immigration and fears that President Barack Obama's administration has an agenda to curtail individual liberties. They include so-called patriot groups, which fear one-world government and don't accept the federal government's authority. And they like northwest Montana because there is no dominant major city with liberal politics. It also has a deep libertarian streak and live-and-let-live attitude, said Travis McAdam, executive director of the Helena-based Montana Human Rights Network, an anti-hate group. "A lot of anti-government energy has been building up over the last couple of years," McAdam said. Sometimes the energy boils over. Burgert is accused of firing shots at Missoula County sheriff's deputies June 12 before he disappeared into the Lolo National Forest. Burgert is a longtime patriot activist who spent eight years in prison on weapons charges — he had a machine gun when he was arrested — and U.S. authorities charged him at the time with trying to spark a revolution. He was released in 2010. "He harbors great animosity for law enforcement and government in general," Missoula County Sheriff Carl Ibsen said. In January, an attempt was made in Spokane to bomb the city's Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade. The bomb was found and disarmed before it could explode. The FBI called it an act of domestic terrorism that could have killed and injured many people. White supremacist Kevin Harpham has been charged in the case and could face life in prison. His trial begins in August. A patriot group called Flathead Liberty Bell held a convention just last weekend, featuring right-wing speakers and sale of survival gear for what organizers believe is a coming showdown with federal authorities. It was a flashback to the 1990s, when groups like the Militia of Montana regularly held such expos, McAdam said. The number of hate groups and patriot groups, which do not all share beliefs and conduct, has been growing across the country since Obama was elected in 2008, according to an annual report by the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which tracks extremist groups and individuals. "Montana is developing into a hotbed," said Mark Potok, director of the SPLC Intelligence Project. SPLC's 2010 compilation of active hate groups found 1,002 nationwide, with no more than 12 in the Inland Northwest between Missoula and Spokane. Area residents complain hate group activities here seem to draw more attention than they do in other regions of the country. "We have a small population, so they get noticed more," said Travis Suzuki, a 22-year-old Missoula college student. "We feel very safe around here," said Kalispell Mayor Tammi Fisher, who said there is no indication tourism has been hurt by the presence of these groups, or that government employees have been threatened. A fast-growing city of 20,000 hemmed in by the Rocky Mountains and Flathead Lake, Kalispell has a strong tourist industry thanks to its lakes, golf courses and ski resorts, and it's a major gateway to Glacier National Park. Montana developed a reputation as a place for violent extremists in the mid-1990s with the capture of "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski and a standoff involving a patriot group called the Montana Freemen. The Unabomber was the FBI code name for Kaczynski, who engaged in a mail bombing spree that spanned nearly 20 years, killing three people. He was living near Lincoln, Mont., when he was arrested in 1996. The Montana Freemen were a Christian Patriot group based outside the town of Jordan. Members expressed belief in individual sovereignty and in 1996 engaged in an 81-day armed standoff with the FBI before surrendering. Some of the more well-known figures in the anti-government movement are re-emerging in the Kalispell area, according to news reports and the SPLC. They include former Aryan Nations member Karl Gharst, who last year screened a movie, "Epic: The Story of the Waffen SS," at the Kalispell library. The showing drew 200 protesters. White supremacist April Goede and her twin daughters — who once formed the racist pop singing group Prussian Blue — have moved to Kalispell. Others include patriot leader and former Constitution Party vice presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin, who believes the U.S. is headed for a fight between big-government globalists and independent patriots; Stewart Rhodes, founder of Oath Keepers, which wants law enforcement officers and military personnel to sign an oath against a one-world government conspiracy; and Randy Weaver, whose standoff with federal marshals at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 kick-started the modern patriot movement. Fisher said the Kalispell community does have its limits, as Gharst found out when he showed the pro-Nazi movie. But groups espousing their own views on government are tolerated. "Montana has a live and let live mentality, and respect for each other's privacy and beliefs," the mayor said. "Sometimes that leads to people with beliefs outside the norm finding refuge in the Flathead Valley."
#6. To: Prefrontal Vortex (#4)
He was a leftist.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestExtremists finding fertile ground in Northwest US
By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press – Jun 22, 2011
Replies to Comment # 4. Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski
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